Is the 15 minute adventuring day now the 90 minute adventuring day?

[HeinorNY]

For Controlers with 6 Surges using 1 surge is a 16.666% drain and 2 surges is 33.33%. Figuring a usage level of that much is about right. For defenders with 12 Surges usiung 3 is a 25% drain, using 2 is a 16.66% drain. Yo can't look at 25%, 50%, and 75% hp drains in a combat as a drain of resources since it resets after each encounter.

Considering from running little adventures with the pregen character, it's very unlikely that the controller will need to spend a surge in each encounter. Even if he does so, the party has a 6 encounter/day autonomy, easily

I really believe that what matter are the Defenders healing surges.
Also from what I've seen so far, players only use surges when they can get the most of it. They won't use a surge that heals 10 HP if they are only 6 HPs short.
What i've seen is the defender spending one surge on the first encounter, 2 surges after the second, 1 after the third, 2 after the forth, and so on, considering balanced encounters by RAW. It's 1.5 surges per encounter. Depending on the party configuration, it will be less than that.
A party that has a defender with 12 surges could go on 9 encounters per day, or more if it has a cleric or another defender.

And all that is for 1st level characters only. We don't know yet if there will be powers or magic items that heal characters without using spending healing surges or let them regain healing surges without an extend resting.


In the worst case scenario, I agree with you, a 1st level party can face 3-6 encounters per day.

 

[keterys]

Actually, we do - one of them has a daily free healing surge.

Another adds +1 to the amount you get from healing surges.

 

[KidSnide]

I think the real key is that 4E has a much more flexible encounter design. If the story calls for fighting through a dozen encounters in one day, the GM can design them to be slightly under "par". That way, the PCs can run through them without using their per-day abilities by depending on action points to get the extra boost when needed. Sure, they'll need some healing but they can avoid using healing surges on their own during combat and get the enhanced healing power of clerical tending between fights. Sure, resources will get depleated eventually, but it can last much longer than in 3E.

Conversely, if the story calls for one big battle, then you can send the PCs at it. Sure, they get their dailies and can all burn their action point, but it's not as spikey as a 3E party blowing their entire spell wad in one fight. (3E parties have an increadible ability to blow tons of their lower level spells in buffs while depending on their 3-5 best combat spells to last through the single encounter.) A 4E party can shoot off all their dailies, but it's very hard to access your whole healing reserve in a single combat.

And, of course, if I want a few fights running up to a big fight (you know - a "normal" game), I just need to make the initial battles easy enough that the PCs can conserve most of their daily abilities. In 3E, any remotely interesting fight will burn enough resources that a sequence of such fights leave the PCs wanting to retreat -- not fight the big bad.

My 3E experience may differ from most, but I found the game quite unsuited for dungeon adventuring. I find the idea of camping in the middle of a dungeon (or repeatedly wandering in-and-out) to totally break my sense of disbelief. So I found myself almost exclusively designing really small (2-4 encounter) dungeons that you could do in a single day, or other story lines that allowed the PCs time to rest.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Uhhhh. But in a 90 minute action movie, there's usually a lot of stuff going on between scenes that isn't shown because it's boring. Not always, but usually.

Um, yeah, and the same holds true for adventuring. You COULD just stick the party in a dungeon with 4 consecutive rooms full of monsters, but you could ALSO make those fights a lot more spread out in the day.

 

[dmccoy1693]

I think Wizards speaks for themselves here Link:

Shelly Mazzanoble (To New DM): Have we slept yet? Tabitha wants her daily back.

NEW DM: (silence).

Shelly (Turning to Scott): Have we slept yet? Tabitha wants her daily back.

SCOTT (To New DM): Have we slept yet?

NEW DM: No. The game picks up where you left off. In battle.

Shelly: Well Tabitha managed to slip behind a boulder and catch a few Z's.

NEW DM: No, she didn't. She's right here on this square where we left her. In battle.

Shelly: Yes she did. You don't know what the minis do when we're not looking.

 

[billd91]

I've very rarely seen the 5-15 minute day and pretty much never because of healing spells. The players I run for are usually pretty well stocked up on healing wands and have a dragon shaman.
When I've seen a 5-15 minute day, it's been more because of buffing strategies. They buff out to the max for the first fight and then, due to the large number of buffs out there, can maybe afford to do it once more. That, I think, is the main cause of it. In 1e and 2e, buffs were a lot rarer and casters tended to conserve more of their resources for a longer time, hoping to come across the situation they had prepared their spells for.
Now, between spontaneous casters and broadly applicable buffs galore, there's always a reason to be casting something, it seems. So they do.

That said, I still haven't seen it very often and never with a party well-loaded with healing wands.

 

[FadedC]

I would also consider 6 encounters to be much more then 30 minutes of in game time. How often do you have 6 major fights right no top of each other with no travel or exploration time in between?

As for the 15 minute work day, I've sort of seen it happen. As a DM I do everything I can to prevent it, but sometimes a fight is just so hard that it really depletes almost everything the players can do. It's a choice between allowing them to rest (maybe throwing a few easy encounters to harass them while they do) or forcing them to go on using whatever plot means I can.....and probably causing a TPK.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I am talking here about the 3-6 combats per day and then rest for a day. My point was more that I was not seeing much of a difference between 3E and 4E in terms of the 15 minute adventuring day. Not that more balanced healing was bad.

The "15 minutes adventuring day" is simply another name for "1 encounter per day problem".

The problem wasn't necessarily that after 3 battles you had only spent 15 minutes of your day adventuring. The problem was that after 1 combat you didn't have enough resources to continue so you'd rest.

The idea being that in order to make players feel like a battle is hard, you'd have to make their hitpoints get close to 0 or to knock at least 1 character near negatives. When faced with such an opponent, the PCs threw everything they had at it since they feared they were going to die. Then after the battle, they'd use almost all their healing to get back to full. So, they wouldn't want to fight another combat without getting their resources back.

However, in 4e you can reduce a character's hitpoints to 0 or into the negatives and barely reduce the resources of the party at all. 2 uses of the cleric's healing word can restore most people to full. However, the PCs are still left with a feeling of "Wow...if he had hit you one more time, you'd be dead."

The party can fight a bunch of that difficulty of encounters each day before they eventually run out of healing surges and likely stop. In 3e, if the cleric at level 1 uses 2 cure light wounds healing the damage from an encounter, the party is nearly incapable of continuing on. That's the difference.

 

[FireLance]

If you want the characters to keep going, you could just make the milestones more refreshing. Currently, a milestone just nets you 1 action point, but you could always make it an action point, 2 healing surges, and a 33% chance to recover a daily power, if you like.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

If a fight is severe enough to take multiple characters to 0 or less, then they would have blown all their per-day powers as well, and you've met your fun quota for the day.

Not necessarily. I think most people who played at DDXP will tell you that hitpoints matter a bunch less in 4e. You can get hit for 12 during one round, 12 the next and be at 3 hitpoints. However one healing word from the cleric and you are suddenly at 15 and can take another hit without going down. And you know that the cleric can do it again next round as a minor action extending your time alive yet another round.

So, you can analyze this situation and realize...you aren't actually in trouble even though you are at 3 hitpoints. You know you COULD be in trouble if multiple enemies hit you or if the cleric drops before he heals you...so there is tension involved but you can probably take out the enemies using encounter powers as this may not be THE encounter you need your daily on.

I saw it happen a number of times at the con. And no one died.